Fashion... The City... all garbage?

So, I am watching The City… well, not really watching. It’s my background ‘elevator music’ TV which I occasionally pay attention to when they’re showcasing trends… Or when Elle magazine PR supremo Erin Kaplan and the stunning accessories editor Olivia Palermo are having a cat fight. Or when they’re talking about which clothes to ‘pull’ (that’s stylist-speak for getting clothes together for a shoot). Or when they feature Louise Roe, the UK fashion journalist and now Elle contributor who I think is the most chic, smart, gorgeous scribe around, and who reminds me of my beautiful old work buddy Hannah Rand.

I digress. I’ve been wanting to write about homeless chic fashion for a while, and this week, it featured on The City; I even approached a magazine about it and they said it wasn’t really their thing. Cool. Though it can’t be denied it’s a trend; granted, it’s a crazy one, but it’s certainly garnering attention amongst the fashion set.

Fashion has been experiencing hobo madness for some time now. Witness the September 2009 issue of Vogue Italia - with multiple covers shot by Steven Meisel – where models sport their homeless get-up complete with faces with dirt.

Fashion label Balmain designed a military-style ‘slashed army’ T-shirt, with ruggedly cut holes in varying sizes. The deliberately distressed piece sells for $1,625 apiece.

The Sartorialist – the online fashion ‘bible’ - blogged about a homeless man’s fashion sense last year. The site’s blogger Scott Schumann featured a photograph of a New York homeless man on his hugely read blog. He wrote, "Usually people in this man's position have given up hope. Maybe this gentleman has too, I don't know, but he hasn't given up his sense of self or his sense of expressing something about himself to the world." His colour coordinating is described as genius, but we’re guessing it was kinda the only thing he had to wear that morning.

A few months ago a homeless man in China became an online fashion icon. The man lives in Ningbo, and is referred to on the net as "Beggar Prince," "Handsome Vagabond," and, most commonly, "Brother Sharp." Some compared his homeless look as similar to those seen at the Dolce & Gabbana show. Uh-huh.

And Vivienne Westwood recently teamed up with Lee Jeans for the ‘Lee Anglomania’ collaboration featuring decidedly hobo pieces. While Marc Jacobs released garbage bag inspired handbags. Actually, they look like what you’d find in your pack-of-three Glad jumbo garbage bag packs – complete with contrasting drawstring. The Louis Vuitton "Raindrop Besace" comes in green and brown, and it's waterproof. It costs $1,960.

And finally, back to The City. This week they showed an ep where Olivia & Co had to pull pieces for a trash-influenced shoot for singer Ke$ha, for Elle’s rock issue. And one of the star elements was this ker-azy pair of shoes, pictured.

The five-inch-tall, garbage-bag-adorned platform heels by Nicholas Kirkwood were being fawned over by all the Elle style editors. And it was a perfect fit for Ke$ha – the girl simply loves trash! She admitted to Joe Zee, creative director of Elle magazine, "I wanted to make a dress out of garbage bags for the Grammys, but no one would let me. I guess it wasn’t chic enough.

Looks like you were right on the money all along, girl.